Why beige is the colour of the rich

In past eras, the wealthy tended to attire themselves in the richest of colours: indigo, crimson, the purple of nobilities and kings. We are no longer in that era. These days, the hue preferred by the richest people on earth is that most bland and mousy of non-colours—beige.

- Guy Trebay

For luxury travel consultant Lindsey Woodcock, the beige onslaught first revealed itself on the terraces and streets of St Moritz, the exclusive Alpine resort town in Switzerland where she lives part of the time.

"It becomes something you can't not see," said Ms Woodcock, who also has residences in London and Sun Valley, Idaho. "There are flocks of people cruising around entirely in cream or beige or off-white."

Against the backdrop of an anti-elitist mood in the United States and Europe, the privileged world of St Moritz has become a place of soothing neutrals. You see it at shops like the cashmere purveyor Lamm, in the lobby of Badrutt's Palace Hotel and on the terrace of the Paradiso restaurant, with its views of the Engadine Valley.

Why is this? The question was put to Mr Alessandro Sartori, the artistic director of Ermenegildo Zegna, the Italian luxury goods label known for outfitting corporate titans and tech moguls. "The ultra-wealthy don't want to show off, and beige colours are good in that sense," Mr Sartori said by phone from Milan. "This class of people is super discreet and doesn't want to be seen."

To be fashionably super rich, he suggested, is to be clad in the anodyne colours of baby food, tea cookies or screen savers: latte, oatmeal, cream, butterscotch and cafe au lait.

"It is all within a limited tonality—stylish, but not too much out of the perimeter of being noticeable," Mr Sartori said.

For Brazilian entrepreneur Andre de Farias, who spends winter at the Swiss resort town, the reassuring tones—restful, luxe, uncontroversial—are consistent with the overall tastes of the ultra-rich.